Development of poly(vinyl chloride)/wood composites. A literature review

Poly(vinyl chloride)/wood fiber (flour) composites are currently experiencing a dramatic increase in use. Most of them are used to produce window/door profiles, decking, railing, and siding by using conical counterrotating intermeshing twin‐screw extruders. Heat stabilizers, processing aids, impact modifiers, lubricants, and pigments are still important for PVC/wood composite formulations. Poly[methylene(polyphenyl isocyanate)] (PMPPIC), γ‐aminopropyltriethoxysilane, maleated polypropylene (MAPP), and copper metallic complex have proved to be effective coupling agents for this composite system. Mechanical properties of PVC/wood composites can be enhanced by combining wood with mica or glass fibers to form hybrid reinforcements. Ultraviolet light resistance and weathering dimensional stabilities of PVC/wood composites are superior to those of natural wood. Density reduction can be achieved through the microcellular foaming technique by using chemical blowing agents, such as azodicarbonamide and sodium bicarbonate, or physical blowing agents, such as carbon dioxide. J. Vinyl Addit. Technol. 10:59–69, 2004. © 2004 Society of Plastics Engineers.     

Scalable,low complexity,and fast greedy scheduling heuristics for highly heterogeneous distributed computing systems

For heterogeneous distributed computing systems, important design issues are scalability and system optimization. Given such systems, it is crucial to develop low computational complexity algorithms to schedule tasks in a manner that exploits the heterogeneity of the resources and applications. In this paper, we report and evaluate three scalable, and fast scheduling heuristics for highly heterogeneous distributed computing systems. We conduct a comprehensive performance evaluation study using simulation. The benchmarking outlines the performance of the schedulers, representing scalability, makespan, flowtime, computational complexity, and memory utilization. The set of experimental results shows that our heuristics perform as good as the traditional approaches, for makespan and flowtime, while featuring lower complexity, lower running time, and lower used memory. The experimental results also detail the various scenarios under which certain algorithms excel and fail.     

Alkaline fuel cells: contemporary advancement and limitations

ZeTek Power recently introduced mass manufacturable and cost effective alkaline fuel cells on the market. Today's research is focused on further improvement both in terms of performance increase and cost reduction. This research is classically performed using small (4 cm²) experimental electrodes in the half-cell configuration. This allows the primary electrochemical losses in an anode or cathode to be determined independently. Additional performance losses occur when one integrates large electrodes into a module of 24 cells and in a stack comprised of many modules. By comparing the performance of half-cell experiments to that of modules, these losses can be distinguished and addressed. The information thus obtained, both for the small electrodes and in up-scaling is vital if one is to identify the key areas in which improvement is possible and where to focus future research. Furthermore, the identification of the losses in a module and system allows us to predict the final performance from half-cell measurements of a new laboratory scale experimental electrode.     

Induction of DNA-double-strand breaks by auger electrons from 99mTc complexes with DNA-binding ligands

The potential of certain Auger electron emitting nuclides for systemic radiotherapeutic applications has recently gained much attention. In particular, the ability of several nuclides, including 111In, 125I, and 123I, to induce DNA double-strand breaks (dsb), a good indicator of cytotoxicity, has been extensively studied. However, this ability has never previously been shown experimentally for 99mTc, which, besides the well-known gamma radiation that is used for diagnostic applications, also emits an average of 1.1 conversion electrons and 4 Auger or Coster-Kronig electrons per decay. Owing to the short range of Auger electrons, the radionuclide needs to be located very close to the DNA for dsb to occur. We synthesized two cationic 99mTcI-tricarbonyl complexes with pendant DNA binders, pyrene and anthraquinone. The X-ray crystal structures of the two complexes could be elucidated. Linear dichroism and UV/Vis spectroscopy revealed that the complex with pyrene intercalates DNA with a stability constant, K, of 1.1 x 10(6) M(-1), while the analogous complex with anthraquinone interacts with DNA in a groove-binding mode and has an affinity value of K=8.9 x 10(4) M(-1). We showed with phiX174 double-stranded DNA that the corresponding 99mTc complexes induce a significant amount of dsb, whereas non-DNA-binding [TcO4]- and nonradioactive Re compounds did not. These results indicate that the Auger electron emitter 99mTc can induce dsb in DNA when decaying in its direct vicinity and this implies potential for systemic radiotherapy with 99mTc complexes.     

Optimizing BRDF orientations for the manipulation of anisotropic highlights

This paper introduces a system for the direct editing of highlights produced by anisotropic BRDFs, which we call anisotropic highlights. We first provide a comprehensive analysis of the link between the direction of anisotropy and the shape of highlight curves for arbitrary object surfaces. The gained insights provide the required ingredients to infer BRDF orientations from a prescribed highlight tangent field. This amounts to a non‐linear optimization problem, which is solved at interactive framerates during manipulation. Taking inspiration from sculpting software, we provide tools that give the impression of manipulating highlight curves while actually modifying their tangents. Our solver produces desired highlight shapes for a host of lighting environments and anisotropic BRDFs.     

Determination of the repartition of monomers between sol and gel fractions in copolycondensate glycerol/azelaic acid by radioassay

The distribution of the monomers between sol and gel fractions, theoretically forecasted from network formation theory, is experimentally determined in glycerol/azelaic acid system with tritium labeled glycerol by radioassay.Presented at the 7th Discussion Conference IUPAC Polymer Networks, Karlovy Vary, CSSR, September 15–19, 1980     

Effects of copper amine treatment on mechanical properties of PVC/wood‐flour composites

Copper amine–treated wood flour was added to PVC [poly(vinyl chloride)] matrix in order to manufacture PVC/wood‐flour composites. Effects of copper treatments on the mechanical properties of PVC‐wood composites were evaluated. Unnotched impact strength, flexural strength, and flexural toughness of the composites were significantly improved by the wood‐flour copper treatment. The optimum copper concentration range was 0.2 to 0.6 wt% of wood flour. Fractured surfaces were examined by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) combined with energy‐dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). PVC/wood interfacial debonding was the main fracture mode of untreated wood‐flour composites, whereas wood‐particle pullout and breakage dominating the fractured surfaces of copper‐treated wood‐flour composites. On the fractured surfaces, more PVC could be found on the exposed copper‐treated wood particles than on untreated wood, a result suggesting improved PVC‐wood interfacial adhesion after copper treatments. J. Vinyl Addit. Technol. 10:70–78, 2004. © 2004 Society of Plastics Engineers.     

Dynamic Parameter Identification Based on Lagrangian Formulation and Servomotor-type Actuators for Industrial Robots

International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems - This article presents the design of a parameter identification model for industrial manipulator robots. This model includes the dynamics...     

Online Bi-Objective Scheduling for IaaS Clouds Ensuring Quality of Service

This paper focuses on a bi-objective experimental evaluation of online scheduling in the Infrastructure as a Service model of Cloud computing regarding income and power consumption objectives. In this model, customers have the choice between different service levels. Each service level is associated with a price per unit of job execution time, and a slack factor that determines the maximal time span to deliver the requested amount of computing resources. The system, via the scheduling algorithms, is responsible to guarantee the corresponding quality of service for all accepted jobs. Since we do not consider any optimistic scheduling approach, a job cannot be accepted if its service guarantee will not be observed assuming that all accepted jobs receive the requested resources. In this article, we analyze several scheduling algorithms with different cloud configurations and workloads, considering the maximization of the provider income and minimization of the total power consumption of a schedule. We distinguish algorithms depending on the type and amount of information they require: knowledge free, energy-aware, and speed-aware. First, to provide effective guidance in choosing a good strategy, we present a joint analysis of two conflicting goals based on the degradation in performance. The study addresses the behavior of each strategy under each metric. We assess the performance of different scheduling algorithms by determining a set of non-dominated solutions that approximate the Pareto optimal set. We use a set coverage metric to compare the scheduling algorithms in terms of Pareto dominance. We claim that a rather simple scheduling approach can provide the best energy and income trade-offs. This scheduling algorithm performs well in different scenarios with a variety of workloads and cloud configurations.